


Of Best Friends and Almost Perfect Homecomings

by peterplanet



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-08 14:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peterplanet/pseuds/peterplanet
Summary: in which peter is is injured after fighting vulture and doesn’t call her to tell her that he’s safe





	Of Best Friends and Almost Perfect Homecomings

There are risks to being Spider-Man. (Y/N) isn’t naïve and she doesn’t try to hide the fact that Peter’s passion is dangerous, but she also doesn’t try to be selfish with him. She lets him keep his work and lets him do what makes him happy because, beneath it all, she really does love and care about him. If he’s happy, she’s happy.

That isn’t to say that there wasn’t a fight between them when he told her about his idea to continue being Spider-Man even though Tony had taken away his high-tech suit. She had argued with him for hours over the fact that he was stupid to go out and do this—why couldn’t he just be happy being a normal teenager for a while, going to homecoming and maybe having a few dances?

To make matters worse, Peter had started out so excited to go to Homecoming with Liz. (Y/N) had been a bit upset, of course, that Peter hadn’t asked her because she liked him so much that sometimes it hurt her. Sometimes it made her sad to think that he had spent all of this time looking past her just to see the other girl with a prettier smile and a prettier way of existing. She hated that she had spent all of this time pining after him, just to have him ignore her because she wasn’t Liz.

He had been so earnest when they had fought over the fact that he would be leaving Homecoming. It was almost like he really didn’t want her to worry, but that was almost impossible when your name was (Y/N) and Peter Parker was your best friend. Danger tended to follow him wherever he went and it made her sad to think that such a caring person had been dealt the wrong hand in life but still wanted to make the most of it. Why couldn’t the assholes like Flash Thompson have these things happen to them?

Maybe because they wouldn’t use the power with such responsibility like Peter used. Maybe because they didn’t deserve it and wouldn’t be able to make anything of the power that they were given. Whatever the reason, (Y/N) wasn’t having any of it because Peter was too young to be worrying so much about the safety of other people. It broke her heart in the best way possible to see how caring he was for everyone else’s safety but not his own.

“It’s your chance with Liz, Peter,” she had said quietly despite the breaking of her heart. She wanted to say,  _‘It’s **my** chance with  **you** , Peter,’ _but those words didn’t come out of her lips. She doesn’t know if she would have preferred them to.

“I’ll be smart, (Y/N),” he had assured her with the half-smile placed on his lips that she had come to fall in love with over the years that she had known him. They had been best friends and over the years of high school, (Y/N) had come to know every part of Peter Parker better than she knew herself.

She knew how he laughed when he was happy and how he laughed when he was nervous and the differences in the pitches that came out. He’d scrunch his nose a bit and cross his arms over his chest when he was nervous and tilt his head back—if only the slightest bit—when he was happy. She knew how he looked at someone that he really liked as though they were made of glass and his touch could break them and could identify when he was interested in someone’s actions because he’d look at them like he did his chemistry homework. His face would stay neutral but his eyes—those warm, puppy-dog brown eyes that (Y/N) had always had a habit of falling into like a pool on a hot summer’s day—would become alive with the warmth of melted chocolate.

She knew what he ordered from Delmar’s and how smashed was  _too_ smashed with his sandwiches and what was just right. She knew his Thai order from the restaurant that he frequented with May when she overcooked or undercooked dinner and they had to make last-minute plans. She knew which sweater he wore when he was having a bad morning and needed something to feel normal again and what bruises had formed over his skin to make it a bad day. She knew every crevice of his skin and every dip of his voice that told the story of his ever-changing emotions. But she wasn’t in love with him because she couldn’t be in love with a boy that would never love her back.

He looked at Liz Allen like she had put the stars in the sky and (Y/N) didn’t want to take that away from him just because she had gotten caught up in the idea that maybe in some alternate timeline he was looking at her like that. Maybe he could love her sometime, somewhere, or someday, but she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that the day when that would happen was happening just yet and she wasn’t foolish enough to go around and destroy their perfectly fine friendship.

So, with all of these things in mind, (Y/N) knew that Peter Benjamin Parker was going to be anything but smart. He would be reckless in the pursuit of justice because he cared so damn much about everyone but himself that he was willing to risk his life just to protect the nobodies in Queens. She knew that he would not be smart because she knew him for all of his little idiosyncrasies.

“You’ll call me, right? Like you do every time to tell me that you’re safe?” She wants so badly to make herself believe that this is just an  _every time_  type of night; Peter’s just going out to swing around Queens and help little old ladies cross the street and have them buy him churros. He’s just going to swing around Queens.

“Always, (Y/N),” he assures her with a smile still tracing the corners of his lips.

She doesn’t dare meet his eyes because that will tell her how he feels and she can’t bear to know that he’s insecure in this moment. She doesn’t want to know if he’s really feeling good about this mission without his high-tech Spider-Man suit because she knows that he isn’t. (Y/N) knows Peter Parker and everything that he is worth and she knows what he feels in every breath that he takes. She knows when he’s insecure and she knows that he is now, but she can’t bear to meet his chocolate-stare because that would just solidify all of her fears.

So, she hugs him and shakes her head against his tuxedo. He looked so handsome tonight and for a moment (Y/N) tries to believe in the idea of an alternate timeline that has Peter in love with her and asking her to Homecoming to the nervous drawl of his stutter that beats in time to her racing heart. She believes in a timeline, if only for a moment, where Peter is hers and she is Peter’s and there is no Spider-Man and no Avengers and he is just  _Peter Benjamin Parker_  and that is enough.

_“Be safe, you idiot.”_

* * *

(Y/N) does not hear from Peter that night or the day after. She does not see him at school the following Monday or Tuesday and it’s not until the following Wednesday morning when she receives a call from an unknown number.

She is not stupid and she is not naïve and (Y/N) does not attempt to believe in the fact that this is a safe idea. But there’s a sinking feeling in her gut that reeks of dastardly intelligent ideas that will ultimately lead to her downfall and she believes for just one moment that this is related to Peter. Granted, every call for the past five days has been related to Peter until she sees the image flashing on her Caller I.D. There’s just  _something_ about this call that feels different to her and it’s too hard to fathom so she answers it without more than a second’s hesitation that feels to long to begin with.

“Is this (Y/N)?” Comes a voice so familiar over the line that she can picture the face on the other end of the line—gaunt and hallowed with age and refined cynicism that masks his truly low self-image.

It’s Tony Stark. And when Tony Stark leads the way, nothing but trouble follows behind what he comes to say.

* * *

She sees Peter at the Avengers Tower—the new and improved one—after being driven upstate by Tony Stark himself. He’d fabricated a lie to her parents so easily that she was surprised that they didn’t see right through it, but maybe the idea of their daughter going to be interviewed and try out for the  _‘Stark internship’_  was too blinding to see around. Whatever the case may be, (Y/N) almost wishes that they would have seen through it.

She wishes that her parents had seen through his too-bright smile and his too-chipper voice. He’s never chipper because Tony Stark doesn’t  _do_ chipper—he does cynical and analytical to the point that it buries his low self-esteem to the choruses of words that have long since passed the line of a joke. He does not stay for dinner or introduce himself on just a first name basis to a father while the wife sits in the room because Tony Stark is not formal. It’s this idea that sends (Y/N) into the full-fledged belief that Peter is not okay.

Tony Stark does not answer any of her questions on the drive to the Avengers Tower and he does not tell her where they are going until they are pulling into the parking garage. He does not talk to her, just lets the soft drone of the radio fill the static silence that he helped to nurture between them.

“Peter is…” He begins with a sigh spilling from his lips.

It’s in this moment that (Y/N) realizes just how old Tony Stark really is. She doesn’t say this in a rude way or think that it distracts from his intelligence or true character at all—what that may be she’s still trying to discover—but he seems more tired than he did at the beginning of the talks that she had heard of the Avengers. In this moment, he is small and tired and running a hand across his face as though he is attempting to smooth out the wrinkles that lie there from years of laughter and frowning and feeling so closed-off from everyone else that he has ever met. (Y/N) sees this and she realizes how much he must worry about Peter, too.

“Just…just tell me if he’s going to be okay.”

She doesn’t want to know the medical diagnosis or, in a worst-case scenario, how long he has left to live. She just wants to know the  _yes_ or  _no_ because she is not a scientific genius like Tony or Peter. Medical terminology means nothing to her if her best friend is going to die.

“What? Kid, of course. He’s just having a slow healing process and he hasn’t shut up about you,” Tony teases.

(Y/N) sees the immediate shift in demeanor from weary to wily. She watches his eyes light up as he tries to put on a brave face and she understands why he’s doing it but she doesn’t want any of it—she just wants to see her best friend.

“If he’s okay, then can I go see him?”

* * *

The first word that comes to mind when (Y/N) sees Peter is battered. He looks like he’s been beaten half-to-death, which she realizes is a stupid thought because he probably was. He spent a Homecoming dance that was supposed to be perfect—one that was supposed to be filled with dancing and stolen kisses and awkward conversations, even if it wasn’t with her—being Spider-Man and protecting his small corner of the world. It broke her heart to think about because he was always so strong and she was always so small. The tears are coming to her eyes before she can stop them and she chokes back a sob when his chocolate-gaze—still his own and still as beautiful as she remembers it being on Homecoming night—meets hers and he offers her a weak smile.

“Sorry that you have to see me like this,” he croaks in a voice so hoarse and small that she feels her heart break for him.

Why does he always have to be the one apologizing?

“Peter fucking Parker,” she begins as she sits next to his bed to hold his hand in hers, careful of the IV that sticks out of his arm and the bruises that litter his body, “I’m going to kill you. I’m actually going to kill you because you’re so  _fucking_ stupid.”

She can’t stop the tears now and she’s squeezing his hand so lightly because she wants him to know that she’s mad but she doesn’t want to hurt him. He hurts for everyone in Queens every night and she doesn’t know if she’d be able to live with the weight of being just another person to do him wrong.

His eyes are wide and honey-colored as the light from the bedroom window comes in just right and her heart stops because he’s so  _bruised._ He’s still beautiful—still dorky, beautiful, Peter Parker whom she’s been best friends with and in love with for as long as she can remember knowing him—but he’s so bruised and it hurts her to think about.

“(Y/N)…” He tries softly with his voice so low and gravelly with the hurt that courses through his body that is only slightly numbed by the fluid that needs refilled and replaced soon.

Maybe he isn’t hurting because of his wounds; maybe he hurts because he sees painful love written in her expression as she holds his hand like it’s the only thing that she knows how to do. He briefly entertains the thought that he could get used to this. Maybe he could get used to being held like this and loved like this by her, even if it meant getting beaten up by Vulture every night for the next ten-thousand years.

“I thought you were  _dead,_ ” she chokes out softly, “and I love you too much for you to be dead. And what if you had died without me telling you that, you fucking  _idiot_? How would I have lived with the idea that you had died and I had never truly expressed to you how much you mean to me? How would I go to bed at night?”

She’s crying hard and fast now as he looks at her and intertwines their fingers. He tries to offer her comfort as he searches for his own words because he loves her so much that it drives him insane to think of how much he had liked Liz only days ago. He’s always loved her—ever since they first met in their freshman year of high-school because she is so intelligent and unapologetic in the way that she stays true to herself.

Instead of speaking, Peter sits up and leans forward to kiss her softly so that his bruised ribs scream at him because his heart is pounding against it. He feels her reciprocate it with such genuine feeling that it sends him back to lean against the pillows and catch her gaze with a sheepish smile making its way over his features.

His boyish features are alight with a shy passion that makes (Y/N) want to fall in love with him all over again. This feeling only multiplies as he meets her eyes so shyly with a gaze that demands she not break eye contact and she melts into his warm chocolate stare.

He cannot think of anything to say to her to convey how he feels as years-worth of frustration and love and adoration comes piling up into the back of his throat, threatening to spill if he breathes too heavily around the words that are caught there.

Instead of thinking too hard, he kisses her again and feels her pull away to comment quietly, “You told me that you’d stay safe, Peter. Why didn’t you try…Why didn’t you try for me?”

Her voice comes out so broken that it tears Peter’s heart in two to leave his ribs screaming from the forces of his labored breathing that struggles to keep the blood going through his veins. It feels like he’s made of ice and fire all at once and it’s dizzying and electrifying because he has  _always_  tried for her.

“Every night in Queens, (Y/N), I tried for you. And the one time that I tried for the people of Queens, I guess that I didn’t think of you within that crowd. But I’ve always tried for you,” he says in a voice so quiet that she has to strain to hear it over the thumping of her heart in her ears as she looks down at the boy that she has always loved and—in a blind moment of teenage innocence—the boy that she believes that she will never stop loving. “I guess that I’ll just have to keep trying for you.


End file.
